


Hush

by tomatoleries



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Crushes, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gender-Neutral Summoner | Eclat | Kiran, definitely very very shippy, idk how the category works in this case tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatoleries/pseuds/tomatoleries
Summary: His heart swells, when they say, “Alfonse, this is-- it’s beautiful.”His brain skips out the process of thinking entirely, taken over by a most encouraging thought:Go on, Alfonse. Say something dumb..(Or, in which Alfonse is in too deep.)





	Hush

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else, smart: beach AUs! Summertime fun!
> 
> Me, pea-brained, can't teleport: *goes absolutely berserk the moment I read the word "cross-hatching"*

\--

A quiet afternoon. The voices of the heroes outside -- some storeys and a tower away,  from the courtyard all the way to the training grounds -- are all a blend of sounds carried in the wind, but diminished, soft, barely noticeable, as if they are in a different world. A thinly veiled other realm, wholly removed from the enclosed space that is the royal study. From up high, encased in cool stone walls, the summer breeze blowing through the wide open windows, it is easy to forget the rest of the world. Nothing else seems to exist to Alfonse, sunk low on the pillows of his chair, legs propped up on the desk and brows furrowed in concentration as his hand busies itself with the large notebook in front of him. He lets out a soft sigh, and then looks up, away from his darkened hands, and towards the only other occupant of the room.

 

Sooner or later, Sharena will find this hiding spot, and urge them to come out and soak in the sunshine -- _why are you cooped up in this dusty old place, it’s a beautiful summer afternoon_ , _we rarely have breaks like this, get out, get out there, have fun!_ \-- Sooner or later they will be dragged out of this little bubble of quiet. Sooner or later, Prince Alfonse and the Summoner will have to come down and come back to the rest of the world.

 

But for now, there is a soft sort of quiet between them, like the corners of the room are fallen in a spell that envelops them from all around.

 

The robe issued by the Order lay around them in a pool of white, shrugged off from their shoulders and left on the floor some time in the afternoon, to welcome the fresh breeze that ever so often comes to chase away the heat of the season. Alfonse keeps his watch, observing how the dappled sunlight shifts against the folds of their clothes when the ancient trees outside sway their branches to the wind’s call. Speckled in warm golden rays like this, he commits to memory the shine on their hair, the angled shadows on their face, the small smile on their lips as they inspect their own work, and then, he is back to working the charcoal in his hand.

 

He thinks he can never recreate radiance like this no matter his tools, no matter how hard he tries. He sneaks a look again for a second, a habit of checking the natural lines of action and shape that their form takes, before resuming his work. He will never quite capture this brilliance, this view of something bright and warm and so full of light, and so he focuses on the shadows instead, soft crisscrossing lines on the darkest parts, and the clean, blank paper where the light hits directly. Faint smudged charcoal on the shadows  beneath their brows, soft lines by the chin, hinting at the shape of their lower lip.

 

Another content sigh, another split-second stolen glance at them, and Alfonse thinks, _beautiful_.

 

He swipes his thumb over a patch of lines to soften the hard edges, imitating the way the blue of their shirt fades to a darker shade, turned away from the light. Then, he moves back to the face, finally reinforcing the faint scratches he had made earlier, placeholders for where the eyes should be. He is mostly done now; just the details of the facial features and he will be finished with his work.

 

 

Alfonse feels happy, contented, warm. Truth be told, he need not look up anymore for a reference for this part. Kiran’s face is embedded in his memory, quite like how the patterned folds of his blanket would stay imprinted on his arm, long after he had woken up from a good nap. Or, he thinks idly, adding more lines to emphasize the curve of their ear, perhaps Kiran is better compared to something more permanent, like ink etched into the skin, or like a scar he earned from a fond childhood adventure. The minute details of Kiran’s face, Kiran’s small habits and mannerisms and quirks are memories he would replay in his mind over and over, in idle moments, in spare minutes of reverie, in mundane afternoons quite like this one. All of them, he turns over in his head, again and again, until it is time to retire for the evening, and even then he thinks of them, as if Kiran is the story he needs to be told before he can fall asleep. He thinks about them, watches the slideshow of memories of them against the backdrop of his eyelids, like a beloved play in the theatre of his heart.

 

He had wondered, before, why that is, and how his resolution to stay away somehow came to this, but-- Well.

 

He adds a few more strokes, for the eyelashes now. _Soft_ , he tells himself, so he doesn’t get carried away with adding the details. _Gentle. No harsh lines._

 

_Fluttering._

 

_Quiet whispers._

 

_A hush._

 

He pulls from his memory the crease of their eyelids,  the curve of their cheek, the slope of the bridge of their nose. The arch of their brows. The shape of their mouth.

 

_Soft,_ he reminds himself. _Careful_ , because most of the time he doesn’t know when to stop adding strokes and strokes of details, when he likes what he’s drawing. _Softly. Like a breeze. Like a secret._

 

He knows by heart how they look like when they look at him.

He also knows by heart how they look like when they don’t, but while he has already admitted to himself that Kiran is, in fact, his favorite subject, still his most favored angle of them is when their eyes are on him.

And so, this bleeds out from his fingertips to the paper, his hands recreating their likeness with lines, with shapes, textured and smudged, in cross-hatches and negative spaces, a thousand keepsakes of memories all coalescing in his mind’s eye, until, finally, he straightens up to look at the picture as a whole, and he decides, he is done.

He looks up to check on their progress. Arms hugging their legs, face resting on their knees, he finds Kiran’s eyes already on him.

“Oh.” He gives an easy smile. “Are you done?” He asks.

“Yes.” Their lips barely part, voice light. There is a smile on Kiran’s face. Warm, friendly. Soft. “You?”

He pulls himself up a bit, only beginning to notice the knot on his lower back. “Well, I just finished, actually. Are you ready?”

A quiet shuffling, Kiran gathering the makeshift carpet that is their robe, wrapping it around their shoulders without trapping their arms within the sleeves just yet, and Alfonse emerging from the nest of pillows he had stacked together before settling on the chair, and then they are an arm’s length away from each other, trading sketchbooks.

 

Alfonse wastes no time absorbing every detail of Kiran as they flip his sketchbook the right side up, revealing his finished work. He takes in, like a scientist, the entire process of how their face lights up, starting from the eyes, and as they scan the page, it travels to the  lips, first parted with just enough space for a quiet gasp to escape, slowly growing to a pleased smile. Fingers ghost the surface of the page, just barely touching, hands careful like they hold within them a most sacred artefact and not a page of scribbles of some silly fool who has gotten himself in something he has already known for quite some time, but doesn’t quite care to admit it yet.

Kiran’s voice is small, eyes full of wonder, like a child watching fireflies. His heart swells, when they say, “Alfonse, this is-- it’s beautiful.”

His brain skips out the process of thinking entirely, taken over by a most encouraging thought: _Go on, Alfonse. Say something dumb._

“Nowhere near as beautiful as the actual thing, but thank you.”

Kiran finally looks up at him, doe-eyes and soft parted lips and all.

“Ah,” He starts. “Well, anyway--” Alfonse sucks in a breath, looking down to play it off like it did not matter, like it was not a confession,  and remembers, as his eyes fall on the page, the other half of the trade.

“Oh,” says Alfonse.

The page is littered with pencil marks that somehow resemble him, and yet Alfonse could not quite reconcile the thought that these portraits, these glimpses into a living, breathing body, are supposed to be _him_ \-- is this how the Summoner sees him? In the silence of the room his heart hammers all of a sudden, as his eyes adjust to the pencil lines against the off-white of the paper. Of them all, the most prominent, taking a good quarter of the page, on the lower right, a still-frame of his time that afternoon as he was drawing a portrait of Kiran. Sketchbook propped up on his thigh, feet on the desk -- Alfonse stares at this version of him, smiling down at the sheet of paper and looking so content.

“I, uh,” Kiran starts, taking his silence for confusion. “I didn’t know what to draw, so I just. You were-- yeah.”

He looks through all corners of the page, making sure he doesn’t miss anything. There’s so much going on and he wants to take it all in. Sketches of him in various positions with various expressions he did not even know he makes. There’s him on the chair he was occupying just moments ago, when he still cared to look proper -- back straight, hands poised, eyes trained low to where the picture is cut off with a horizontal line, presumably what was supposed to be the desk. Below that, just vague shapes and connected lines hinting at his form, a few moments later, when he has all but given up on having both dignity and comfort, slid down on the chair, a frown on his face.

 

More: lines hinting at movements, a figure in a parrying stance, the only indication that it was based on him the fact that it was holding a sword with the unmistakable features of Folkvangr, and the golden wing on his armor, messy pencil lines a sketched pattern of the golden scales and--

 

Alfonse blinks.

 

It was a warm and humid day. With things with Embla and Muspell slowing down somewhat, they had all feared it had meant that the enemy forces were planning something, something they absolutely must prepare for. With that in mind Alfonse ended up running himself ragged, Kiran not any better in terms of self-care. And so, Commander Anna stepped in, practically forcing Alfonse out of his armor, and then wrestling Kiran away from their books and strategies. Once, they were dragged to the beach. Now, they were forced to take the day off, and this is where they ended up in. These days Kiran is never without their robe, even on supposed breaks, and Anna allows it, a wordless understanding amongst everyone that this is Kiran’s own source of comfort. It was a beautiful and intricate thing, made especially for them, enough to keep away the chill, but nothing too heavy, and so it was no problem for them to wear it at all times. Alfonse, on the other hand…

 

That morning, Alfonse had taken one look out his window, stared at the clear, clear sky, and decided he did not want to be cooked alive within his own armor. He had chosen something light, comfortable, _breathable_ , with a wide neck and a loose cut. He was _not_ wearing his armor today--

 

“These are amazing, Kiran,” he manages, eyes never leaving the pencil lines making up the cape of his usual attire. And then, before he could stop himself, before Kiran could react, before any of them could even think about the motions and any associated consequences, Alfonse does the unthinkable.

 

He turns the page.

 

Kiran’s startled gasp barely registers as his eyes find more copies of himself in various situations, from blobby caricatures of him happily eating an apple, to vague shapes of the back of his head; studies in colored pencils of how his hair fades to something gold at its tips, an entire page of mostly lines of action, a few figures given more attention and detail, of him with his sword, swinging, parrying, blocking.

 

“Oh, my.” Alfonse gracefully steps to the side as Kiran lunges for their sketchbook. “Is this why you like watching me train?”

 

“Alfonse, give that back!”

 

He sidesteps Kiran again, and then takes another step back.

 

“Alfonse.” Voice growing louder, face getting redder.

 

Alfonse only laughs.

 

Kiran tries again, but again he slips past, ducking away from their arms.

 

“I must say, I’m impressed.” He laughs again as Kiran half-growls, preparing for another attempt to wrestle the book from him. “You really captured the likeness of this _handsome_ man down to the smallest detail, it’s as if you have him _memorized_ . He must _always_ be on your mind, no?”

 

A loaded question, Alfonse knows, and one inspired by his own experience -- he has, after all, his own stack of pages filled with nothing but Kiran, hidden safely in a secret compartment he himself crafted out of his desk.

 

But Kiran doesn’t know that.

 

They splutter in indignation. “You-- you -- _please_  just give it back!”

 

Another step to the side, and Alfonse _twirls_ as if this chase is nothing but a dance to him. The stone floor is cool against his bare feet, skipping away from Kiran’s reach, and in a moment he is up on the chair, and when Kiran lunges at him, he moves to the table, infuriatingly graceful and never a misstep, and finishes his showing off with a bow to his partner. A thought, at the back of his head, that he is, for the first time, suddenly thankful for his tutors insisting he learn how to dance. And then, more thoughts along that line:

 

_I have not danced with Kiran yet._

 

_I would like to dance with Kiran, someday._

 

Just the thought makes him smile. He straightens up, watches Kiran, cheeks puffed and arms crossed, the prettiest shade of scarlet bright on their face. “You-- Give that back, you have _no right_ to--"

 

Alfonse is very much fond of this whole situation, and does not even try to hide this fact. Kiran huffs, embarrassed more than anything else, doing their best to appear calm and in control, desperate and yet failing in trying to school their entire countenance into the serious and authoritative face they use when they are ordering Heroes out to battle. Cute.

 

Nevertheless he plays their game, voice low, comically serious. “Well, I would think I have the right to see my own face, Summoner.”

 

At this, Kiran looks away, shrinking just the slightest bit. Alfonse absorbs all this, from the way they tuck in their chin, to the softest way their lower lip juts out when they  pout. He crouches low, weight on his toes, and he hums thoughtfully, not quite ready to give this up just yet.

 

“I  wonder,” he says, steadying his heart, feigning calm and innocence and willing his anxieties away, letting himself slip through the cracks while he still has it in him to do so. “I do wonder, if, perhaps, this means _something_.”

 

Alfonse is, first and foremost, a prince. The prince of Askr, next in line to the throne. And then, after that, many more roles to fulfill. A member of the Order of Heroes, a leader, a soldier. A son, an heir, a brother. He would consider himself an entire list of responsibilities first before he reaches the title of _artist_ , but at the end of it all, he supposes, he still is one, as he looks at Kiran, watching how their eyes grow wide, the way their hair moves when their head snaps to his direction. In his mind he is already planning an entire palette to mimic the exact shade of the red of their face in this moment, alight in the late afternoon sun, and when Kiran stutters out half-sentences for an excuse, he watches them, eyes on him, waist-deep in all his teasing, finding that he wants to see more, to know more, and to capture all of it, in monochrome or in colors bursting and flowing, in paper or a canvas or even on fresh plaster stretching out for miles and miles, just to keep a record of them all.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kiran says, eventually. Their eyes leave him, something like guilt and sadness slowly casting over their features. “I-I didn’t -- I’m sorry, you probably think all this is creepy, I just, I just like...”

 

His world hangs suspended in a balance, and just like that Alfonse feels like he is no longer in control of the situation, as he leans in, waiting with bated breath, for the words that will come next.

 

But it never does. The door handle twists, and some huge weight slams against it, before a familiar voice yelps in pain from the other side.

 

 

“What in the…?” They hear the person outside declare to themselves. “Why is this locked?”

 

Quietly, he places the sketchbook on the desk, and then in an instant Alfonse leaps off his perch, landing on his toes with barely any sound, one hand flying up to Kiran’s mouth as Sharena calls out, “Alfonse! Kiran! I _know_ you’re in there!”

 

Alfonse would bet that his sister does not know that for certain, and he looks to Kiran, one finger to his lips. He shakes his head at them, hoping they will know what he means.

 

Kiran’s eyes are wide, their breath warm against his hand, their lips even warmer. Alfonse doesn’t breathe, only watches as they nod, their two hands clamping against his, a double guarantee that their presence will remain their well-kept secret.

 

They stay like that, eyes on the door handle still jiggling. They remain frozen even when it stops, unwilling to give away their location, like they are children caught doing something they were specifically told not to do.

 

Eventually they hear more rustling behind the door, and then a defeated, forlorn sigh. “I don’t think they’re in there,” Sharena declares. Alfonse has never been more thankful for his sister’s habit of talking out loud to herself.

 

They stay still, waiting.

 

“They’re not in the library,” Sharena continues her soliloquy, “and they’re not here either… what the heck, Alfonse, always keeping the Summoner to himself…”

 

Alfonse is sure Kiran heard that as clearly as he did, so he keeps his eyes away from them, instead watching the small gap between the door and the floor, where Sharena’s shadow gives away her presence.

 

“Oh,” they hear her pipe up. “Maybe his room?” And then, a manic sort of giggling. “Oh, _such_ a bold move, brother, bringing them to your _bedroom--_ ”

 

Alfonse has half a mind to snap back at all the implications in his flustered state, his lips parting, fully prepared to tell his sister off, before Kiran’s hand slaps itself over his mouth.

 

He exhales, frowning, feeling his face growing steadily warm. Silently and without moving, they listen as Sharena’s footfalls grow faint, moving away from their hiding place, and only when it is absolutely quiet once more do they let their hands drop, and they both breathe a sigh of relief.

  


There is a few seconds of deliberation on his part, eyes moving from the door to the sketchbook on the table. “That was close,” he says instead.

 

Kiran seems to be on the same boat as him. “Should we go after her?” They ask eventually.

 

Alfonse frowns, just the slightest bit. “I don’t know,” he says, “I mean, I feel bad, but…”

 

Alfonse looks out the window. The sun has yet to fully set, though the sky has become a pastel sort of blue, the wisps of clouds already painted with the faintest of yellows. He keeps the silence, mulling over what to say. A myriad of reasons -- _it’s too warm outside, it’s too loud, too busy_ \-- and Alfonse starts sorting through them, noting how each one just sounds to him like an excuse that means to say, _I want this moment to last._

 

_I want to spend more time with you._

 

_I want to be with you._

 

 

He doesn’t know how to say it without actually saying it. But when Alfonse looks back to Kiran, he meets their eyes. Then, they smile.

 

“Maybe later, then?” Kiran offers. “It’s still too warm outside, and loud, and…”

 

They trail off, shrugging, eyes to the floor.

 

_Carmine_ , Alfonse finally pinpoints the exact color of their blush. He hums.

 

Kiran doesn’t say anything anymore. They don’t have to.

 

He takes the sketchbook abandoned on the table, and hands it to them. “I, ah. I apologize, for looking through it, and taking it without permission.”

 

They take it with shy hands. Alfonse watches as their fingers close in on the offered item, folding at the creases. “It’s fine,” they say. “I’m sorry too, for being such a creep.”

 

He laughs at that. Genuinely laughs. If they were a creep, then what would they call _him_ ? His heart is full, when he thinks about the pages Kiran has dedicated to him, the same way he has offered numbers and numbers of pages to them. He feels the warmest, softest yellow, when he thinks about the fact that, without even agreeing to do so, they both ended up drawing each other. Alfonse is not one to assume, but he entertains the thought of what if. _What if, what if…_

 

“It’s not creepy,” Alfonse tells them. “It is honestly rather flattering.”

 

They give a small smile. “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Kiran takes his sketchbook from where it lay, discarded, relieved that the pages remained safe and unharmed. “Well. Here.”

 

Alfonse takes it, and finds that there is the softest sort of resistance, before Kiran’s hands finally surrender it to him. He looks at them, catching their eyes once more.

 

“Actually, Alfonse,” they start.

 

Alfonse waits. Watches. Kiran’s eyes are on his drawing, twinkling, their teeth worrying their bottom lip. For the second time, the word pops up in his mind. _Cute._

 

“If it’s alright, and you can definitely say no,” Kiran prefaces the request. “But if it’s alright, can I… keep it? The drawing? Your. Your drawing.”

 

Alfonse blinks, repeating their words in his head and wondering if they mean what he thinks they mean.

 

“Your drawing. Of, of me, I mean.” Kiran elaborates.

 

Something warm and soft blooms behind his ribcage, as a smile quickly finds itself on his face. He had plans of taking that page and keeping it hidden in a separate book, in that secret compartment, among with all the rest, but Alfonse finds this alternative suddenly much better, much more appealing to him.

 

“I- I’ll pay for it, if you want,” Kiran adds suddenly, thinking his silence had meant hesitance on his part. “Name your price!”

 

Alfonse hums, pretending to consider a thought. “Well, actually…”

 

And he keeps it prolonged, suspended, watching their face await his decision. Briefly he considers teasing them more by denying them, or even demanding some outrageous price -- _your desserts for a week? A hug? A kiss? --_  but quickly gives up the thought; he can’t do that to them, and he knows he can never say no to them, anyway.

 

“I would be willing to part with it,” he says eventually. “That page, in exchange for your page.”

 

The brightest smile on Kiran’s face as they agree, and then, it falls, when they ask, “Wait, which… which page?”

 

The blush is creeping back to their face, and Alfonse laughs again. Now he is certain he can _never_ let them know the collection of pages filled with drawings of the other is actually mutual. “The page from this afternoon would be fine,” he tells them.

 

The quiet settles in. As if everything else is suspended in time, there is a tinge of surrealness in everything Alfonse falls witness to. He watches as Kiran holds his drawing in their hands, carefully, watches as they press it to their chest, eyes closed, chin tucked low, a smile on their face. Alfonse preserves the quiet, taking in the way their eyes twinkle, the way they catch the light making it seem like they were made of glass. He watches them sit on the table, feet swinging, watches their eyes move from the paper to him, and _oh_ , how soft, when they smile at him. Alfonse is all mush inside, so endeared and so, so soft.

 

Quiet still, he sits beside them. He takes a moment to admire his likeness Kiran caught on paper, and wonders if the smile they preserved in that sketch of him that afternoon is the same smile now growing on his face.

 

He hums. Kiran is warm, soft, when they lean on him. Softer, still, when his arm finds its way around them.

 

And all around them, the world remains quiet.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> But gods, what a fool I have been, to ever think that my first Kiralfonse fic was also going to be my last.
> 
>  
> 
> As someone who really likes drawing, myself, that latest update really had me freaking out for hours on end. So much so that I completely abandoned writing a fic, to write this one instead.
> 
> (The other fic was also Kiralfonse)
> 
> (I am officially in Kiralfonse hell)
> 
>  
> 
> Mmmm. His creative process, as well as the thought process behind it all, are _mostly_ based on my own, lmao. I don't have formal training with art though, so I hope this doesn't feel off.
> 
>  
> 
> Well. That's about it. I hope you guys enjoyed <3


End file.
